


Listen Before I Go

by kiiengly



Category: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, jthm - Fandom
Genre: Child Abuse, graphic depictions of death, mentions of trauma and suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 22:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21064469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiengly/pseuds/kiiengly
Summary: Alternate Universe in which Nny didn't live after the universe reset, and continues to remain at 777 as a ghost."Squee" aka Todd, as an adult, helps Nny combat his loneliness and attempts to help him either leave his home.





	Listen Before I Go

The neighbor had been unusually quiet lately. Yeah, sure, the guy typically kept to himself; he was the definition of a loner, but he’d typically stop by once in a while to check up on his friend. It had been over a month, and Todd hadn’t heard a peep out of 777. Against his better judgment, and against the stern warnings of his teddy bear, he slipped out of his house and crossed over to his next-door neighbor’s lawn. A voice in his head chided him for acting so recklessly around such a clearly unstable individual. But Johnny, or Nny, as he liked to be called, was one of the only people who showed him kindness, or love for that matter. It was one of the many things Mr. and Mrs. Casil didn’t give to him. The young child ran up to the door, beloved stuffed animal in hand, and knocked on the door.

“Mr. Nny? Are you there?”

The silence was his only answer. Todd reached for the door handle and cautiously turned it and pushed the door open. You’d think a serial killer would be careful about their home security of all things, but that wasn’t what was on Todd’s mind as he entered the house. What did concern him, however, was the rotting corpse of a once familiar friend lying on the floor of the living area.

What hit him first was the stench. It was a bastardized comparison, but the smell reminded him of opening a bag of jerky in a hot car. It filled the house and having the door open didn’t help at all, as it simply lingered in the air. Eyes watering, the boy quickly covered his mouth before he puked.

The corpse itself was something you’d only see in an over-the-top horror movie. The flesh was deteriorating, eaten away by maggots and vermin, and there were bits of bone visible. The face somehow looked even gaunter than it did alive. The skin was even more stretched, sinking into his cheeks. The eyes were either shriveled away or eaten, leaving two seemingly empty cavities. A couple of bugs were crawling in and out of them, probably eating away at whatever meat remained inside his skull. But to Todd, what frightened him the most was the large hole in the side of his friend’s head. There was an exit wound, and the setting sun was directly angled that he could see its rays through the large hole. Dried black blood stained the wound, his face, and the floor, and he couldn’t help but break down into tears.

Did someone hurt Mr. Nny? Did he hurt himself? Why would any loving deity to this to the poor boy’s only friend in the world? Although he hesitated to admit it, he did love his neighbor, no matter how many times he’d terrify him. Shmee echoed words of comfort in his head but still threw a casual insult or two at the body lying on the floor. As his tears blurred his vision, Todd didn’t see the form that approached him and attempted to get his attention.

“-Ee? Squee?”

The boy’s head shot up, a startled noise escaping his throat. Standing there, right behind his body, was Mr. Nny. He had the same appearance as he did alive, only his skin was paler, and his face and hair were soaked with blood. One of his eyes was a deep red from several popped blood vessels. The other was almost pure white, with a gray blot in the place that his iris once belonged.

His friend floated off the floor, zooming in circles around Todd before returning to his original spot where he first manifested. The young boy shook violently with terror as he gaped at the spirit, who was giving him a large, horrifying grin. Nny’s face moved in closer, floating several feet off the ground, right over his own corpse. His eyes grew wide with excitement as he looked down at the rightfully scared 6-year-old.

“Isn’t this great, Squee? I can fly now!”

His only response was a high-pitched scream as his neighbor ran back to the “shelter” of his own home.

* * *

The life of a serial killer is often quite eventful, but then again, most serial killers aren’t puppets of an eldritch being living in their wall that has to consume blood unless you want it to escape. Nny certainly wasn’t expecting to die that day, well, he was, but then he changed his mind. How was he supposed to know that his ex (though is it really your ex if you had one date?) would call his phone, triggering his Home Alone-esque suicide booby trap? How was he supposed to know that Heaven and Hell were real? How was he supposed to know that releasing the monster from his basement would create a universal reset?

So here he was, standing over his body, which, by the way, was really weird to see. It’s like how you astral project in a dream, but it isn’t a dream. It’s reality. It’s reality and it’s happening right now.

Johnny made an attempt to touch his body; maybe if he tried, he could simply float into his body and then he’d be alive again? As he attempted to phase into his body, he found himself sinking through the floor and into the first basement. A frustrated groan echoed around the room, and that’s when it hit him. No one was there. The chains and his tools were all still intact but his… “friends” were no longer there. Their ex-captor wondered what happened to them. Did they die at the hands of the Wall Monster, or did they just end up back home, safe, with their friends and family? He didn’t really care either way. All of these people had done him wrong in some way or another, and now they had the audacity to leave? After all the time he spent torturing them? It was good torture! The maniac wasn’t really one to brag, but he considered himself good at what he did. It was good, honest work!

* * *

Time had passed. He didn’t even know how long, all he saw was the sun and moon rise and set day after day. He spent most of his time gazing down at his corpse, watching it begin to slowly rot. He wasn’t sure exactly how he felt about watching himself literally fall apart, but hey, it looked cool at least.

Nny had found that he was able to still interact with some physical objects, but any progress he attempted to make with his body was a failure. He didn’t really want his body anyway after he saw some rats chew on his eyes.

“Life is beautiful,” he thought as he saw the vermin feasting. “It’s fucking nasty, but it’s beautiful.”

And then, one day, as he drifted aimlessly around the floors of his basement, the spirit heard the cries of a child. He felt their emotion; a gut-wrenching pain of indescribable proportion. And he knew that pain. He knew it all too well. For this was the pain he felt as a child, as a teen, as an adult. The pain even continued after death. Nny knew he couldn’t ignore it. He ascended up to the first floor, and there he was. Squee. His dearest friend. And there it was. His own corpse. A putrid reminder of his own idiocy.

Watching Squee’s pain hurt him more than any blade in his collection, and he knew he had to comfort him.

“Squee? Squee?”

The child’s head snapped up, and his jaw dropped as he saw the ghost of his next-door neighbor hovering above him.

Oh no. Quick! Make him smile! Lighten the mood!

So Nny shows off his newfound ability as he moves around Squee, and puts on his brightest smile, serving as reassurance.

“Isn’t this great, Squee? I can fly now!”

Cue the boy running out of the house screaming. The specter drops his head in disappointment.

“Fuck. It was the blood, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t need the voices in his mind to tell him that the joke wasn’t funny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's such a first short chapter! I thought adding more would kind of ruin the flow of the story.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fanfiction that isn't a reader insert!!! that's p wild to me lmao


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